Suspect in Bulacan massacre recants, claims police torture

DID the arrested suspect in the massacre of a family in Bulacan in late June commit the crime? Or didn’t he?

Days after admitting to police that he killed Auring Dizon, 58; Estrella Carlos, 28 and her children Donnie, 11; Ella, 7; and Dexter Jr., 1 in their home in San Jose del Monte, Carmelino Ibanez is now claiming that he was forced to make the admission because police had tortured him.

Ibanez’s flip-flop came despite the physical evidence that police found at the scene of the crime – the kitchen knife that was allegedly used in the killings and the blood found on Ibanez’s hands.

A witness also testified to seeing a “bloodied” Ibanez running out of the house of the victims shortly after the massacre took place.

In Thursday’s interview that aired on “Failon Ngayon”, a news and public affairs program on dzMM, Ibanez said:

(I was forced to admit to the crime because I was afraid of the police. I was tortured. They wrapped my head in plastic. They, what is that, hit my hand with a hammer. I surrendered because I was afraid.)

He said police expected Ibanez to flip-flop because he now had a lawyer.

”We will never do that,” Aquino said in a live radio interview when sought for his reaction.

On June 28, Aquino presented Ibanez to the media in Camp Olivas, Pampanga, 33 hours after he allegedly killed the family of Dexter Carlos Sr., a security guard who found the victims as he arrived from his night shift on June 27.

Ibanez had apologized, saying he was a drug user and, at the time of the crime, had a drink with buddies and smoked “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) after.